While a number of River Forest trustees expressed interest in learning more about Home Rule Monday night, they also sent a clear message to Village President Frank Paris that they won't support such a change in governance simply to help raise tax money for District 90 elementary schools.

We're not going out this week at all. We're too depressed about being back from vacation. Once again, we find that our life has not changed one whit in our absence. It's the same damn thing every summer.

In its recently-revised survey of Downtown Oak Park and neighboring business districts, the Historic Preservation Commission identified roughly 68 percent of buildings not already within the Ridgeland Historic District as "structures of merit" or as architecturally "significant."

No one, the saying goes, ever expects bad things to happen to them. Getting mugged is simply not something people dwell on as they move through their daily lives. Yet every week the local police reports contain evidence that such thinking is at best flawed.

Passersby who may have speculated that the new sledding hill at Barrie Park looks a bit bigger?#34;and steeper?#34;than its predecessor would be correct, said Park District Executive Director Gary Balling.

Barrie Park, which has been closed since January 1999 due to an extensive environmental cleanup project, is on target to re-open Sept. 10. The re-opening will feature an all-afternoon celebration sponsored by the Park District of Oak Park and the Southeast Oak Park Community Organization.